This invention relates to a method and apparatus for unloading rod-like articles from containers. In particular the invention is concerned with a method and apparatus for unloading cigarettes or filter rods from trays, for example in order to feed cigarettes into a cigarette packing machine or to supply filter rods to the magazine of a pneumatic distributing device. For convenience, reference will be made generally to "cigarettes" but it should be understood that this term is intended to include similar rod-like articles such as cigarette filter rods and rod-like smokable articles other than cigarettes.
In the cigarette industry it has become common to transport and/or temporarily store cigarettes in trays, which usually have a depth about the same as the length of the cigarettes and which store the cigarettes parallel to the depth dimension. A conventional tray is open on its front face and on its upper side, as referred to the normal disposition of a tray in handling apparatus, i.e. with the cigarettes substantially horizontal. In typical tray unloading apparatus, for example for delivering cigarettes into the hopper of a cigarette packing machine, trays are successively inverted over the hopper to allow the cigarettes to fall from the trays into the hopper. Alternatively, instead of being inverted directly over a packing machine hopper, trays may be inverted over conveyor means for moving the unloaded cigarettes away for further processing, e.g. packing. Trays are conventionally inverted by rotation about an axis lying at right angles to the lengths of the cigarettes, i.e. the axis is parallel to the long sides of a tray. Such apparatus is disclosed, for example, in British Patent Specification No. 1,191,342.